After an accident or loss, property owners typically file claims with their insurance companies. In response to these claims, the insurance companies assign an agent to investigate the claims to determine the extent of damage and/or loss and to provide their clients with appropriate compensation.
Often, the claim investigations can be time-consuming, difficult and even dangerous for the insurance agents. For example, in order to investigate a claim for damage to a home owner's roof, an agent may have to climb onto the roof, and perform inspections while on the owner's roof. By climbing on the roof and attempting to maneuver around the roof to perform his inspection, the insurance agent opens himself to a real risk of injury, especially in difficult weather conditions where the roof may be slippery because of rain, snow, and/or ice and winds may be severe.
Even if the insurance agent performs the inspection without getting injured, performing the full investigation may still be time-consuming. In addition to the time required to drive to and from the incident site and to perform the inspection itself, significant paperwork and calculations may be involved in calculating compensation owed to the clients. For example, if an insurance agent takes photos on the roof of a client's building to assess a claim for roof damage from a hurricane, in order to calculate how much money should be paid to the client, the agent may have to come back to his office, research the client's property, research the cost of the damaged property and research repair costs. All of these steps are time consuming and both delay payment to the client and prevent the agent from assessing other client claims.
In situations where the insurance company has received a large number of claims in a short time period (e.g., when a town is affected by a hurricane, tornado, or other natural disaster), an insurance agent may not have time to perform timely claim investigations of all the received claims. If claim investigations are not performed quickly, property owners may not receive recovery for their losses for long periods of time. Additionally, long time delays when performing claim investigations can lead to inaccurate investigations results (e.g., the delay may lead to increased opportunity for fraud and/or may make it more difficult to ascertain the extent of damage at the time of the accident or loss)
Insurance companies have recently attempted to use remote controlled devices to assist in investigating claims. In this case, the insurance agent generally visits the site of the claim and uses a remote controlled device to investigate a roof of a client. The device may include a remote controlled balloon, a helicopter, a robot capable of scaling a building, etc. The remote controlled device may employ a camera, video camcorder, etc. to gather data about subject matter related to the claim (e.g., the roof of the client) and may transmit this data to the user whom remains firmly on the ground. However, the insurance agent is required to visit the site because the remote controlled device, generally, is controlled by a short distance radio controlled handheld console. Furthermore, the operator must have extensive flight training and practice time to successfully and safely operate the remote controlled device.